Alexander Diane, Currie Janet
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, United States.
Princeton University and NBER, United States.
Econ Hum Biol. 2017 May;25:33-51. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2016.10.005. Epub 2016 Dec 9.
There is continuing controversy about the extent to which publicly insured children are treated differently than privately insured children, and whether differences in treatment matter. We show that on average, hospitals are less likely to admit publicly insured children than privately insured children who present at the ER and the gap grows during high flu weeks, when hospital beds are in high demand. This pattern is present even after controlling for detailed diagnostic categories and hospital fixed effects, but does not appear to have any effect on measurable health outcomes such as repeat ER visits and future hospitalizations. Hence, our results raise the possibility that instead of too few publicly insured children being admitted during high flu weeks, there are too many publicly and privately insured children being admitted most of the time.
关于公共保险儿童与私人保险儿童在治疗上的差异程度以及这些差异是否重要，一直存在争议。我们发现，平均而言，医院收治公共保险儿童的可能性低于在急诊室就诊的私人保险儿童，并且在流感高发周，当医院床位需求旺盛时，这种差距会扩大。即使在控制了详细的诊断类别和医院固定效应之后，这种模式仍然存在，但似乎对诸如再次急诊就诊和未来住院等可衡量的健康结果没有任何影响。因此，我们的结果提出了一种可能性，即不是在流感高发周收治的公共保险儿童太少，而是在大多数时间里，公共保险和私人保险儿童的收治数量都太多。
